The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) have made it possible for enterprises to sell products and services by using the WWW to describe offers, using various means such as WWW forms or electronic mail to conduct transactions. This form of selling is based around the catalogue model that originated in the 19th Century, where the WWW site substitutes for the paper catalogue, and the postal service is replaced by the modem online equivalent.
Many enterprises currently use the telephone to replace or augment the catalogue model. A customer can call the organisation and purchase goods and services interactively over the telephone. This has the advantage that a customer can interact directly with a Customer Service Representative (“CSR”), but has the disadvantage that the telephone is a non-visual medium.
The need to handle large numbers of customers simultaneously, and the concurrent need to manage a pool of CSRs, has led to the development of the call centre, and the development of specialised software control packages to determine how incoming customer calls are routed to CSRs.
It is possible to combine the catalogue model of WWW selling with the telephone call centre (and other communication channels) to produce what is often called contact centre. The contact centre is like a telephone call centre, but instead of CSRs handling only telephone calls, they may be expected to handle customer communications in a variety of formats: FAX, electronic mail, telephone and WWW are typical. A contact centre is characterised by multiple contact or communication channels, and a pool of CSRs who interact with customers to provide services, products or support. The contact centre provides the illusion of a single point of contact for customers on a regional, national or even international basis. U.S. Pat. No. 5,848,143 (Geotel Communications) discloses a contact center capable of handling both traditional telephone calls and Internet calls where, in the case of the latter, the customer contact can involve multimedia exchanges.
Contact centers generally rely on the customer contacting the center rather than the other way around. However, where customers are browsing a website, the opportunity does exist to know what customers are currently interested in and even to know who those customers are (for example, where the customers have previously registered with the site and permitted an identifier cookie to be on their machines).
Systems are known (see www.cobrow.com) in which a communication is created upon a party accessing a web page. Uses proposed for such systems include virtual shopping where sales assistants can observe customers entering a virtual store.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a way of selectively alerting customer service representatives to customer activity on a website with a view to enabling contact to be made with the customers.